Monday, August 31, 2015

We were initially not so sure we wanted to hit the Glimmerglass Festival as the over four-hour drive upstate scared us a bit. But, three words
won us over: Vivaldi and John Holiday. We can never get enough of Vivaldi’s
operas, so rarely performed, and we were bewitched by the Operalia-winning countertenor when we discovered him at the Spoleto festival earlier this year.
And so we rented a car, booked a B&B and embarked on the most wonderful
weekend trip through pristine farmlands and charming lakes, all blissfully off
the cell grid. I was surprised by how much the Glimmerglass Opera house
perfectly blends with its surroundings, as it really looks like a big barn
tucked away by a pond. There was nothing rural about the performance though,
and we definitely did not regret the trip upstate to catch it.

Caesar shows us what he's made of.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

Though singing not the title role but that of an impetuous young
Cesar in love, countertenor John Holiday dominated Vivaldi’s Catone
in Utica. He had it all: control, power, musical ability, agile
expressivity and a fullness of sound so rarely found in even the best of today’s
countertenors. Holiday completely transcends questions of gender when he sings.
You don’t think: “Ah, this is a man singing like a woman,” or “Why is Caesar
being sung like an effete man?” Holiday is just so transfixing and almost
superhuman that it only makes sense for someone with his voice to play the most
powerful character of this opera. The angelic sound of his instrument and his
virtuosic handling of it carries you away and leaves you wanting for more,
without knowing exactly what hit you. Like never before by listening to Holiday
I understood why castrati (the closest sound to today’s countertenors) were the
rockstars of their time and why they got the best roles.

Catone maneuvers for relevance.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

While Holiday’s Caesar stole the show, the evening’s tragic
trajectory belonged to Cato, at least on paper. However, the particular setting
of the opera performed here with its highly abbreviated first act, the original
of which is not extant, actually configures the story in large part around the
betrothal and courtship of the hand of Marzia, Catone’s beautiful daughter. Her
father has in mind a politically expedient union with Arbace, chief of the
North African Numidian tribe that has sided with him in his treacherous affront
to Caesar’s rise. But, ironically enough, Marzia is already in love with none
other than her father’s sworn enemy, the great Julius Caesar himself.

Arbace's marriage of political expediency.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

Vivaldi’s Catone is the perfect example of the baroque
propensity for casting countertenors as young men in love. Both Arbace and
Caesar are the two contenders for the hand of the lovely Marzia, despite the
waning political influence of her father. The central love triangle of the
story is crisscrossed by another pair of lovers – Fulvio, Ceasar’s lieutenant,
falls for Pompey’s widow, the stunning and vengeful Emilia (here played by the
excellent mezzo Sarah Mesko). Then of course, there is the overarching plotline
of the political intrigue between the stoic Cato (the last stubborn bulwark of
the republic) and the rising emperor.

Early in Act I we get parallel peacocking seduction arias. Arbace,
sung by countertenor Eric Jurenas, is the first to woo his “betrothed.”
He pushes himself on his reluctant prey as he sings S’andrà senza pastore.The Numidian prince – whose Mad Max-inspired garb fits his desert
lifestyle, it’s post-apocalyptic chic! – is a bit too overbearing and brusque
with the object of his affections. Marzia shuns and spurns him and plays hard
to get while he chases her around the stage like a wild animal on the hunt, or
like a shepherd trying to catch a wayward member of his flock.

Arbace woos his reluctant betrothed.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

Caesar’s introductory aria, on the other hand, his parallel song
of seduction, was genuinely moving. In Se mai senti spirarti sul volto lieve,
he busts out with some major male grandstanding, which forces his beloved
Marzia to admire him in all his splendor, rather than force himself on her. She
comes to him and he doesn’t have to make the effort to even so much as lean in
toward her. In fact, in his vocal preening, posing and posturing, he is so
taken with his own perfections that he almost seems to be more in love with
himself than with her. And the aria in Holiday’s hands is mellifluous magic,
pulling the attention of the house into his orbit, melting everyone around. She
fawns over him and is just as taken as we are with his talents and gifts as a
singer. This is what the power of song is about. Holiday shows us what a great
operatic moment can do. The seduction of the music imbues the narrative with
its Orphic power but yet also transcends the narrative. It is like coloring so
vividly inside the lines that its force radiates out from it.

Caesar puts on his game face.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

In a change of tone, Caesar’s second big aria, shortly thereafter,
is precipitated after a confrontation with Catone who taunts him with threats
of war. Guerra mi piace (“I like war”), says a headstrong Catone. E
guerra avrai (“and war you’ll have”), retorts the emperor in his fury. A
sudden flood of red light washed over the scene, intimating the bloodshed of
war. Caesar is seeing blood and so are we. The quip provokes him to launch into
his great yelps of war aria, Se in campo armato. He doesn’t sound girly
or effeminate at all. Instead, he comes off counter-intuitively as powerful and
manly. His voice has an agile power and a dynamic expressivity. Pacing the
stage slowly and deliberately, Holiday seemed more regal than boyish. The full
bodied way his voice dropped as he prepared each time to launch into his barrage
of little yelps, as he moved from a chesty countertenor to his head voice, were
unforgettable. They came off as little conniption fits that gave you whiplash
of the ear. That night at Glimmerglass we heard the clarion call of Caesar’s
imperial revolution.

Catone barks orders at his minions.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

When we signed up for Vivaldi at Glimmerglass this is precisely
the kind of musical experience we were looking for: fiery Venetian baroque
operatic fireworks. The fact that the bill included John Holiday, one of the
big winners at this year’s Operalia competition, was the icing on the cake. He
and most of the rest of the cast that featured an exciting mix of young artists
(mezzos Megan Samarin as Marzia and Allegra De Vita as Fulvio)
and seasoned veterans (tenor Thomas Michael Allen in the title role and
mezzo Sarah Mesko as Emilia)pushed Vivaldi’s vocal score to its
expressive limit in many key moments. After Holiday, the most impressive singer
on stage was Ms. Mesko, who attacked Emilia’s vengeful arias with a fury and
passion worth of Vivaldi.

Emilia and her game face.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

I wish I could say the same for the orchestra. While
the singers were fleshing out the ends of their lines with bright full colors
and emitting fiery vocal effects into the intimate theater from the stage,
there were fewer sparks to be heard from the orchestra pit. What I love about a
good Vivaldi score are ferocious strings, especially the violins that demand to be
passionately attacked with a Mediterranean animality. Here there were very few
Vivaldi fiery Italian flourishes. The orchestra under Ryan Brown’s
direction just didn’t seem to rise to the level of the singing. They were tight
though slightly academic sounding, more restrained, and more English in
disposition than uncontainably Southern European.

I found Tasewell Thompson’s production to be extremely effective in its
sophisticated simplicity. The staging presented a brief introduction of each of
the characters during the overture. The stage was visible through a translucent
scrim and each of the singers in full classical garb strutted out onto the
stage one at a time. Their character’s name and a brief description of what
they represent was projected onto the scrim to ease us into this world. The
costumes were grandiose. The setting was the North African desert in Numidia
where Cato has fled. Over the course of the evening an ominous big full moon
was alternatively projected on the backdrop along with a portentously setting
sun. Gold-encrusted “Roman ruins” (or ruins of the declining Roman republic?)
were strewn about in heaps around the stage. An arc du triomphe framed
much of the action, as if to signify that the ineluctable march toward empire
is under way.

A brighter day is promised in the imperial silhouette.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

Another brighter day is promised in the form of a series of
incisive projections featured at the rear of John Conklin’s set design.
Silhouettes of architectural elements appear against the solemn sunset of the
backdrop: a Corinthian column, the outline of the Coliseum as it stands today.
The gloaming of the dusky sky is offset by a brighter world. Ironically though,
some of the silhouettes are rather ominous, portents of later decline, like the
that of the Coliseum already in the ruins as it appears today, which I suppose
is a proleptic fast forwarding to the eventual fall of Roman imperial glory
altogether. Civilizations rise, and even the greatest fall. Here is the story
of one man’s convictions and his attempt to get out of the way of the
inexorable storm and surge of the locomotive of Caesar’s imperial project, to
whose ineluctable rise even the senate back in Rome has already succumbed.

A daughter grieves.Photo credit: Karli Cadel

And, of course, succumb even Cato does. I was eager to see how
Vivaldi or at the very least how this production would treat Cato’s final
definitive gesture. Attitudes toward tyranny are at stake in how Cato’s
clinging to the moral high road is staged. His is the ultimate study in
conviction. Thompson’s production again gives us an abbreviated finale.
Foregoing the grand finale choral passage featured in at least one version of
the score, Thompson leaves us with what is perhaps the most memorable image of
the evening. The lights go up on the final scene to reveal a Cato slumped over
in his throne with his back to the audience. His arms hang lifeless and red
streamers run from his wrists like streams of crimson blood across the stage on
either side. Rather than a final flourish of vocal fireworks, the orchestra
gives us a majestic oboe solo that is both haunting and incredibly moving at
the same time. Simply magnificent.

Bel Canto at Caramoor is truly one of the great operatic summer
pleasures. We discovered this festival last year with an electrifying Lucrezia Borgia and have been huge fans since. Beyond the charm of the overall
pre-show experience (picnic on the villa’s idyllic grounds, stimulating
afternoon recitals by young artists, interesting topical talks), the quality of
the evening’s pièce de résistance – the actual opera – is incredibly
high across the board. Caramoor is all about the music. The orchestra and singers
are so successful in creating a vivid bel canto world that one almost
forgets that the opera is not staged. This summer was no exception with the
rarely performed La Favorite, Donizetti’s take on Parisian “grand opera.”
While this work fits the strict form requirements of this French genre
(historical subject, grand scenes, ballet piece, showcase arias), it is also
unmistakably Donizetti big dramatic bel canto. Beautiful singing is
front and center here and the plot is full of juicy (and irreverent) twists and
turns.

The young monks pines.Photo credit: Gabe Palacio

Our romantic yet clueless hero is a monk who falls for a mysterious, angelically beautiful young lady. It
turns out that the angelic lady is the king’s favorite mistress, who manages to
keep this detail a secret from the pining monk and to pull some strings to make
him a war hero dear to the king. The king meanwhile is sick of his wife and
pressures the Pope to concede him a divorce so that he can marry his mistress.
The Vatican responds with a big “no,” topped with a thundering curse on the
adulteress mistress. At the same time, the king discovers that said mistress
has betrayed him with the monk-turned-war-hero and takes his revenge by
allowing the two to marry. Once the ex-monk learns that his angelic new wife is
really a Vatican-cursed courtesan he loses it, dumps her, goes back to his
monastery and retakes his vows. The ex-favorite mistress shows up at the
monastery very sick and begs the monk to forgive her, he of course welcomes her
back into his heart with open arms and reaffirms his ardent love for her, but
it’s too late and she dies in his arms. All monks pray. Curtain.

The Vatican emissary holds forth.Photo credit: Gabe Palacio

The various dramatic tensions here were masterfully delivered by a
great cast. Argentine tenor Santiago Ballerini as the monk-in-love,
Fernand, was the revelation of the night. This young singer (not yet thirty
years old) embodied the romantic hero with soaring outbursts of pure ardent
love, his singing was lyrical and fluid and displayed a sincere passionate
beauty and agility that was utterly moving and exciting. In his first arias the
power of his convictions to leave his calling at the monastery to pursue his
feelings for the mysterious woman shined through brilliantly as his voice
soared into the upper reaches of the tent at Caramoor and up into the night
sky. He carried his chest with the haughty pride of someone with convictions, certain in his love, and made a convincing war hero too. Manly and agile. I definitely look forward
to hearing more from him.

The favorite of king.Photo credit: Gabe Palacio

The title role of La Favorite was successfully portrayed by
French mezzo Clémentine Margaine. Hers is a complex and tormented
character: she may initially come across as distant and double faced (all lovey
dovey with the monk while sleeping with the king!) but when the drama explodes
her emotional core comes out as she fights for one last glimpse of happiness
with her loving monk. Ms. Margaine has a clear, clean-edged purity to her sound
and was particularly convincing in the heart-wrenching finale and in her
raging duets with the king, played by baritone Stephen Powell who exuded
an arrogant, manly power.

Bass-baritone Daniel Mobbs as Balthazar (prior of Fernand’s
monastery and Vatican emissary) delivered the night’s most chilling and
terrifying highlight when he denounced the king’s adulteress and leveled a
curse on her with all the wrath of the lord behind his booming voice – or is he
really the devil? The ferocious intensity he unleashed against her was nothing
short of diabolical and Mr. Mobbs was nothing short of memorable.

Maestro Crutchfield in action.Photo credit: Gabe Palacio

Under the baton of maestro Will Crutchfield, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s gave an inspired performance. Particularly impressive was
their rendition of the ballet music during which the first violin in particular was
given ample room to shine. I don’t know what Crutchfield’s secret is, but he
always manages to bring the best out of his performers. We’re definitely
looking forward to whatever he has in store for next summer.

Lui: Milan’s Teatro alla Scala
commissioned Jürgen Flimm’s new production of Rossini’s Otello as part
of the city’s many offerings to visitors in connection with the Expo 2015 world’s
fair. Maybe not the most obvious choice as it’s all too easy to think that
Rossini’s opere serie have been surpassed in one way or another despite
the Renaissance of interest in Rossini buffo, but his Otello,
nevertheless, has much to recommend it.

The victor returns.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: I was impressed by the
complexity and sheer enjoyability of this Otello all while noting Rossini’s “recycling”
habits: the overture here is almost identical to the one in Il Turco in Italia,
and several arias (including showcase pieces such as Che ascolto? and Tra
tante smanie e tante) are very similar to bits that he will go on to
recycle in Cenerentola and La Donna del Lago – I may even be
missing some additional references here as I am not familiar with the entire
universe of Rossini’s myriad works. The composer popped out operas at a very
fast pace, still I cannot help but smile at one famous Donizetti comment
referring to his colleague as “awfully lazy.”

Why so much indecision?Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Rossini’s Otello differs from
the more popular Shakespearean version of the story on many counts, the most
relevant one being the more central role of the characters of Rodrigo and
Desdemona’s father Elmiro. Here Otello’s jealousy is triggered by his belief
that Desdemona is betraying him with Rodrigo, chosen by Elmiro as his daughter’s
husband (unbeknownst to him, she already secretly married the Moorish general).
Also, as in La Donna del Lago, Desdemona is the object of desire of
three men (Otello, Rodrigo and Iago), which is a very welcome occasion for
having a tenor bel canto feast. These
details aside though, the main themes and dramatic impact of the work remain
the same, particularly in the chilling finale with Desdemona’s murder and
Otello’s desperate suicide after he is told that it was all Iago’s fault and
Elmiro and Rodrigo would be happy if he married Desdemona.

Good night, my love.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: I was surprised by how
radically different the three acts of the opera are, both dramatically and
musically. I found Act I to be a bit flat as it set the stage for the different
themes, with the action picking up collectively in Act II (Rodrigo’s pleading
with Desdemona, her confession to already being wed to Otello, Iago’s scheming
and the furious confrontation between Otello and Rodrigo). The drama explodes
and peaks more intimately between Desdemona and Otello in Act III (her lyric
despair, his murderous jealousy and ensuing desperate suicide).

Lui: The first act in particular
feels perhaps the most methodical. Rossini’s treatment of the libretto feels at
times formulaic in the dueling duets between the tenors, each taking turns
repeating the same lines or slight variations thereof. But it turns out that
this was all just exposition because in Act II the fireworks really begin,
with the Otello-Iago duet, L’ira d’avverso fato (that by the way was picked up by Verdi in Rigoletto’s Vendetta),
and the Otello-Rodrigo face off, Ah vieni, nel tuo sangue. The third act is indeed more subtle and focused on
individual feelings and tensions between Otello and Desdemona.

The casualties are counted.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: There’s something quite
irresistible about extraordinary tenors outsinging one another, when done right
one simply cannot get enough of it – it’s exhilarating and addictive. Rossini
knew that and used the dueling tenors trick in Otello and in later works
as La Donna del Lago, Ermione and Armida. Interestingly,
these Rossinian works marked the switch for male leading roles from the more
sexually ambiguous castrato and contralto musico to tenors, made
possible by the Compagnia del San Carlo in Naples available to Rossini at the
time. These duets are truly a feast for the ears if great tenors are available,
which seems to be one of the reasons why many of these serious operas are so
rarely performed (when compared to the buffas). Otello calls for three
challenging tenor roles (the title character, Rodrigo and Iago) and tonight we
were lucky to have singers who were up to the task.

The tenors duke it out for Desdemona.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

The world class cast was overall very strong, with exciting peaks.
Juan Diego Florez as Rodrigo was his usual sensational self, delivering
bright, exciting fireworks but also highly lyric and moving moments (Ah come
mai non senti / pietà dei miei tormenti). His performance left me wanting
for more, too bad that the Rodrigo role does not have more lines. Gregory
Kunde’s Otello was impressive, particularly for a tenor in his sixties. His
is a baritonal tenor, with a beautiful timbre, manly and agile. The duets
between Florez and Kunde were among the most exciting operatic moments I’ve
witnessed all year.

Iago spars with Rodrigo.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Tenor Edgardo Rocha as Iago was pretty strong both vocally
and as a stage presence, holding his ground next to Florez and Kunde. He was
always convincingly evil to the core. Bass Roberto Tavaglini as Elmiro
exhibited his powerful instrument that filled the space more than anybody else,
with fluid phrasing and strong almost violent expressivity as Desdemona’s
despotic father. Mezzo Annalisa Stoppa was also pretty impressive in the
secondary role of Emilia, with a powerful and expressive instrument.

Soprano Olga Peretyatko as Desdemona had beautiful stage
presence and displayed great acting chops. Vocally, she delivered a solid and
accurate performance though not particularly exhilarating on the emotional
level. Her articulation at times reminded me a lot of Netrebko’s dark chesty
undertones, must be a Russian singer thing. Peretyatko carried the show as the
emotional focus and core of all men involved, however, singing-wise the fellas
were way more impressive, except maybe for her rendition of the Canzone del
Salice (the famous Willow song) in Act III, when time stopped as Desdemona
heart-wrenchingly sang from a gondola with the accompanying harpist slowly
floating by in the background as though passing like two ships in the night on
one of Venice’s many canals.

The ravishing Olga Peretyatko in her feathers.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Upon our first intimate
glimpse of Desdemona in Act I, she is seen on the beach brushing up on her
Arabic and studying the teachings of an oversized copy of the Koran with her
lady-in-waiting, Emilia. It is presented as the story of a double assimilation:
Otello’s Venetian social integration and Desdemona’s religious and cultural
conversion. Her intentions initially seem to be good; her convictions seem
strong. But none of that seems to last very long, at least not in this singer’s
take on it. She is suddenly blowing like one of Dante’s lustful souls in the wind
of an infernal storm. Repentant over Rodrigo’s and her father’s every last whim
when in the subsequent scene she falls into their ambush that is framed in this
production as a covert wedding.

Flimm's stark Otello on the "shore."Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: Jürgen Flimm’s production moves the action to the Lido, the
Venetian seashore: the stage floor is surrounded by white curtains and covered
in sand and rows of white Fermob chairs lined up or scattered around in
different formations depending on the scene. The costumes were a hodgepodge of
different eras: from nineteenth-century black and white formal wear with top
hats, to black tunics with Elizabethan ruffled stiff collars and Renaissance-like armor making an appearance in the duel scenes.

Like a feather in a storm of men.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: Desdemona stood out among
Elizabethan-looking ladies, as she was dressed in an elegant gown covered in
feathers. I wondered about the symbolism of her pronounced costume. It seems
that they derived her characterization from source material of the lines that are
quoted in the libretto from Canto V of Dante’s Inferno: Nessun maggior dolore / che ricordarsi del
tempo felice / nella miseria. And in fact like the shade of poor Francesca,
this Desdemona is blown around from one man to the next between her father,
Iago, Rodrigo and Otello. She is like a plaything tossed about in capriciously
in the wind of these men’s whims. Which is perhaps what the loggionista
was referring to when he called this Desdemona “scemaaaaa!” For a character that is usually perceived as innocent,
pure and good to a fault, an interpretation that casts her as so fickle would
seem to go against her most prominent traits. Her heart bleeds for everybody
and she seems to go along with what every man expects of her. It’s no wonder
that Otello might misinterpret her faithfulness. She is putty in everyone’s
hands. To some extent the libretto leaves room for this interpretation (the
famous Dante quote, her willingness to abide by the mistakes of her father,
etc.). But it goes against the essence of Desdemona’s fundamental goodness. She
does not come off as the portrait of consummate conviction that she usually is,
but rather as a plaything of all the men. And the loggionisti in our section weren’t having it! “Listen to the score!
Study the music!” they shouted.

Desdemona aflutter in the wind.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: Flimm’s production did not
always make complete sense to me (why is he moving the finale to a futuristic
looking take on NYC’s Park Avenue South with 1950s-looking billboards and
characters sporting modern day clothes?) but all in all it was generally eye
pleasing. At no point did it detract from the action and always allowed the
drama to unfold powerfully, which is sufficient production-wise, particularly
with such a great cast.

The harrowing tragedy of intolerance.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lui: For a Milan that was in the
throes of an immigration crisis when we arrived just a few weeks earlier,
Rossini’s Otello was a timely offering, not least of all considering its
opening scene which has no analog in its Shakespearean source material. Namely
the scene in which Otello asks for the reward of citizenship in exchange for
his heroic deeds against the Turks on behalf of his adopted patria, Venice. Of
course, the story that ensues is one of close-minded intolerance and the
systematic rejection and exclusion of the newly named figlio d’Adria, which everyone knows ends in tragic
hoodwinking and the deaths of the two most innocent and well-meaning characters
in the whole story. What kind of message is La Scala sending here in presenting
such a poignant tragedy of intolerance? Simultaneous to the gesture of
acceptance from his adopted fatherland, Otello is at one and the same time
rejected and excluded from the very community that has just accepted him. The
conspiracy descends upon him from the highest echelon of the city, Desdemona’s
father, and seconded by the slimy Iago, who here is given explicit motivation
as one of Desdemona’s previously spurned lovers, and Rodrigo, here her father’s
favorite suitor for the hand of his daughter.

Desdemona sings the Willow Song.Photo credit: Matthias Baus

Lei: We had tickets in the nosebleed Galleria section and experienced
first hand the ferocity of (some of) the Milanese public. Folks sitting next to
us shouted furiously stuff like “Regista
studia la musica!!,” or, “Questa
Desdemona è scemaaa!!,” or else, “Il
direttore è noioso!!,” to then launch themselves at intermission into
animated soliloquies on how the opera should have been staged or sung, with an
obsessive folly in their eyes that was highly entertaining to watch (if a bit
scary). These people take opera not only seriously but also very personally.
The booing is also a particularly La Scala phenomenon, unleashing hooligan-like
shouting matches of boos and “bravi.”
This time soprano Olga Peretyatko got a few boos (that only seemed to
exacerbate the “brava” shouts from
the majority of the public), while conductor Muhai Tang was not so lucky and
was pretty much crucified by a vast portion of the audience shouting all sort
of insults. The public was unanimous though in its uber-enthusiastic
appreciation of tenors Juan Diego Florez and Gregory Kunde. No doubt opera
still stirs wild passions (more or less justified) at La Scala, which is a
great thing, still my heart goes out to all artists who dare perform in this
theater.– Lui & Lei